Friday, April 05, 2013

Why aren't you angry?

Here's
a rather graphic representation of the growth in income inequality in the USA
since the 1960s; plotted on a chart where the income growth of the bottom 90
percent is represented by an inch-high bar; the growth of the top 10 percent
needs a 163 foot-tall bar; while the top 0.01% need a 4.9 mile-high bar to
represent their real wealth growth in the same period.

If you still aren’t convinced that the elite in America have
rigged the game in their favor over the past several decades, here’s a
startling graphic that should change your mind in a hurry.

Cory Doctorow at Boing Boing makes this observation:

“The top 1 percent enjoyed 81 percent of all the increased
income since 2009. Just over half of the gains went to the top one-tenth of 1
percent, and 39 percent of the gains went to the top 1 percent of the top 1
percent. Ponder that last fact for a moment -- the top 1 percent of the top 1
percent, those making at least $7.97 million in 2011, enjoyed 39 percent of all
the income gains in America. In a nation of 158.4 million households, just
15,837 of them received 39 cents out of every dollar of increased income.”

Aided and abetted by Washington, a thimbleful of Americans are
hauling in truckloads of cash while the rest of us stress over paying the rent
each month. And we shouldn’t fool ourselves into believing this is only a
Republican failing. There are plenty of Democrats who are willing to play
along. Who do you think finances their campaigns?